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Club Planeadores Bariloche Vuelos de bautismo - Cursos de piloto de planeador |
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Report of John Williams of his fligth of 1.551 km.
Average speed: 180,25 km/h.
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Monday 30th November
2009 was St Andrews day, the patron saint of Scotland. So what better
day for a visiting glider pilot from that country to attempt a big
flight?
I first came to Bariloche for one week in 2008, hoping to fly with
Jean-Marie in the Nimbus, but shipping delays made that impossible. But
I participated on a flight on Villegas for an hour with Roberto Petry
and was amused by this because the chief instructor at my home club near
Edinburgh is Robert Petrie! It was enough to ensure that came back a
year later, this time with my own glider, the electric self-launching
Antares 20E. On the 30th I decided to declare an out and return flight
from a point S of Bariloche to a point 775km away, half way between Lago
Buenos Aires and El Calafate, and back for a declared 1551km.
With much help from another pilot visiting from Scotland I launched
around 0740 and quickly got into good wave at Villegas. Then, crossing
Bariloche runway conditions started to look really good. The start
sector was of course surrounded by cloud and sink, but a few miles to
the south west the sky looked wonderful. It was. For a time I was
running at more that 250kph and still climbing strongly, I had to move
out of the best lift to avoid going reaching the agreed maximum of
FL195. In the first hour after the start I'd covered 236km! Then things
started to slow down, energy lines were less clear and around latitude
46S there was a difficult gap. However there always seemed to be more
good looking clouds in the distance and there was therefore no reason to
turn back. I tried to use the best lift to gain a little extra height
when there was a difficult bit ahead, and then run fast across the
weaker bits. A few times this had me uncomfortably low at around 3000m,
but I always found a climb when I really needed.
Lago Buenos Aires looked beautiful but the sky ahead did not. The last
50km in to the turn point was too far into wind, and moisture was
developing clouds at all levels just where I needed to be. Climbing to
nearly 6000m I decided to just go for it, and with great relief reached
the turn sector and turned back towards a more open sky. Once back in
good wave the first part of the return was superb. It feels good to
start reducing the distance home when you are over wild terrain and far
away. After 5 hours in the air things were looking good. Until - in the
same place around 46S - the wave bars disappeared and were replaced with
big gaps and cloud streets. This was no longer a good day in Argentina,
more like a bad day in Scotland. Thankfully I've flown on enough bad
days in Scotland to be able to slow down, survive and yet make some
progress towards better conditions. Nearer Esquel the wave got good
again and the speed increased; only as I reached Bariloche were there
more worries when the cloud cover reached 7.5 oktas and I needed to keep
every foot of available height to avoid breaking the 1000m height loss
rule.
There was enough of a gap over Nahuel Huapi to descend safely and land
at Nahuel where Jean-Marie was waiting. I was really pleased to have
broken some 10 british records. Only later did I discover that the
average speed over 1550km out and return was 180.3kph, enough to break
Klaus Ohlman's existing world record by 3kph. What a country! What a
town! What a club!"
The
flight is claimed as a world record, subject to ratification.
John Williams
Download IGC file for SeeYou 9BULGHE1.IGC
Some pictures
